RT 2008: Day One

Whew! Today was fun. :) Here are some highlights:


** Waiting ten minutes for the elevator to get just about anywhere, including one floor up or down since there don't appear to be staircases anyplace. Oh, wait. That was a lowlight. Moving on!

** Author panels!! These are why I come to RT. Well, author panels and the opportunity to network, network, network! I'll talk more about these in a moment.

** Lunch with Jeanne Stein and Keri Arthur. Jeanne and Keri are two of the nicest, most down to earth people I've met in the publishing industry. I accosted Jeanne as she was leaving an event at last year's RT Convention and proceeded to blather on mostly incoherently about how much I loved her the first book in her Anna Strong Chronicles, THE BECOMING. She politely thanked me and then confessed that I'd caught her on the way to the bathroom. Awkward! Stalker-ish! Bad fan, no biscuit. However, I'd apparently made more sense than I thought, because she found me later and invited me for a drink and we got to know each other a bit. I love Jeanne's writing--it's gritty and unapologetic. We've kept in touch periodically since and I was delighted to meet up with her this morning.

While we were waiting for our food, we saw Keri walk by, so we banged on the window--cause, yanno, that's *so* what you do when you see someone you know while sitting in a restaurant--and she came in and joined us. I've been a big fan of Keri's Riley Jensen series for a long time now and spent a bit of time with her at last year's convention also. As I said, she's super sweet and very approachable. She has a new series coming out later this year (October?) which I'm just dying for. It's about dragons! There was a preview of it in one of the most recent (not the very latest but the one before that) Riley novels. It's soooooooooooooooo great. The heroine wakes up on a beach--without her memory. I can't wait to see how she pulls it off from a writing perspective. Talk about challenging yourself!

** The 1st Person POV Sex Scenes panel with (among others) Barry Eisler. I'll talk about the panels in more detail, but I just have to gush about Barry for a second. Barry is fricking adorable. A. Dorable. So adorable, in fact, that I felt compelled to approach him after the panel and tell him so! :) Okay, I was really there to tell him how insightful I found his comments, but I couldn't help throwing that in. ;) He writes a thriller series that has romance and sex in it (thus qualifying him for the panel). I'll definitely be picking up his books at Saturday's book fair. You should go check him out now!

** A drink with Rachel Vincent and Jeri Smith-Ready. I'm a longtime fan of Rachel's, which anyone who's read my blog with any regularity already knows. I had the pleasure of hanging out with her quite a bit at last year's convention and she's super-fun, super-sweet and super-knowledgeable. All around a great person to spend time with! I was recruited to give a live! in person! Celebrations and Libations toast for all her recent success from sora_blue, which I delivered this evening along with an appletini. :)

I'm also a fan of Jeri's work, though I'm admittedly behind in her fantastic fantasy series. I was--

[We interrupt this program to bring you room service news: The room service dude just dropped off my pasta and I've got my shit spread out EVerywhere so I told him to just put it on the bed--before I realized that yesterday's bra was thrown carelessly on the coverlet. Awkward! And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming!]

As I was saying, I was reading EYES OF CROW, the first book in Jeri's fantasy series, at last year's convention. Loved. It. I've not read the second or third, simply because I'm dreadfully behind on my TBR list. but she's fantastic and has a great UF coming out in May about Vampire DJs! It promises to be lots of fun.

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So, as for today's panels, I attended several in the 'paranormal' track and had the pleasure of hearing such amazing authors as Kim Harrison (!!), Kelley Armstrong (!!), MaryJanice Davidson (!!) and Angela Knight speak, among several others.

MaryJanice is one of the funniest people I've ever heard. I mean it. There isn't a word that comes out of her mouth that doesn't have me at least chuckling, if not outright splitting a gut. She's also one of the most let's-cut-through-the-bullshit-and-tell-it-like-it-is authors I've encountered. I know that puts some people off, but I totally respect and love it.

Kim and Kelley had some really smart things to say and it was great to hear them talk about their process. I've mentioned this before, but I think Kim has some of the best story arcs in the biz and I'm not ashamed to say I pretty much hung on every word. :)

I've not read a lot of Angela Knight, but she's a *great* panel speaker. She's funny and engaging but has really, really smart and insightful things to say about writing. And she often provides handouts, which I really appreciate since it's an extra investment on her part and shows that she's dedicated to the success of aspiring authors.

Two people who (whom?) I haven't had much exposure to but *loved* in their panels were Caridad Pinero and L. A. Banks. Caridad was an excellent speaker and I learned a ton from what she said. I'm definitely hitting her table at the book fair on Saturday because she's bound to be good writing. I've tried to read one of L.A. Banks's books and found that it wasn't my thing but she was a fun, accessible speaker. She made me want to pick up her work again.

I wanted to share these two quotes with all of you, as they really struck a chord with me.

Rosemary Laurey was on one of the paranormal panels I attended. She's British, and you have to hear the accent in your head to get the full hilarity of the quote. She said, "Let's face it. It's all lies, so you can do whatever you want." It was quite funny but I really liked the message of it. Not that it's okay to break rules or write things that are in no way plausible within anyone's reality, but more the message of don't hold back. If you have a crazy idea, write it! That's the beauty of writing in the paranormal/UF/fantasy genre--you can make crazy shit up, and as long as you make it work within the confines of your story's world, voila!

Along the same lines but in a later panel, L.A. Banks and some of the other authors were discussing some of the gutsy things they've done. Monique Patterson, senior editor for St. Martin's Press, said, "If it scares you, then you should probably do it." I think this is FANTASTIC advice. This is the stuff that keeps us honest as writers. Keep pushing, keep challenging, keep growing.

Well, that's about the end of my Day One recap. Oh! I also said a quick 'hi' to Caitlin Kittredge and there was a sighting of Mark Henry, though he had a crowd around him and I wasn't able to introduce myself. Plenty of time for stalking introductions as the week goes on though. ;)


Stay tuned as the week goes on. I'll be back tomorrow with more adventures! For now, it's back to the writing. :)

Edit: I was going to link to everyone's website whom I've mentioned in this post, but I'm having to stand in the bathroom to get a signal strength higher than 'very low' so, um, just google everyone, 'kay? ;)